A blog provided for those friends from Canonsburg,Pa to share, think back, indulge in a few memories and hopefully re-connect on a friendship that has distanced from you...
As I've said before: "Who had it better than us!"...enjoy, Dick Garboski

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Saturday, December 20, 2008

Well, the Class of '57 lost another member. I had an email a little earlier today from Dumpy who told me about Jack. I don't know how Dumpy found out but after we graduated a bunch of us (Dumpy, Karpy, Joe Pruce, Jack, to name a few) used to hang out at The Ranch so I imagine one of them found out. Dumpy said Jack died of heart failure and COPD. I searched, found his obit in a paper in DC and copied it below. May he rest in peace.

Take care all.

Wallie P.

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Thursday, December 18, 2008; B07

John A. McCahill White House Special Assistant

John A. "Jack" McCahill, 69, a lawyer who, as special assistant to the president during the Nixon administration, dealt with the Watergate tapes, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart disease Dec. 13 at his home in Falls Church.

Mr. McCahill served as deputy assistant in the office of the special counsel in the White House, working for James St. Clair. He was one of the lawyers who argued before the courts on matters involving the audiotapes recorded by President Richard M. Nixon in the Oval Office, which became key evidence in the Watergate scandal. He also helped shape strategy for the presidential defense during the House impeachment hearings, as well as Nixon's defense in related proceedings.

During the Ford administration, he was named general counsel to the President's Commission on Olympic Sports and worked on the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, which required the U.S. Olympic Committee to provide athletic programs for the disabled.

He then turned to private law practice, serving as special legislative counsel to the U.S. Olympic Committee and representing several sports federations. He later became a defense lawyer in a number of white-collar civil and criminal cases and litigated for foreign countries.

John Allen McCahill was born in Canonsburg, Pa., and graduated from Columbia University. He received a law degree from Catholic University in 1969. He was an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and prosecuted more than 100 cases in D.C. Superior Court.

An avid skier, he also loved to sing, cook Italian meals and attend opera. He also liked to seek out Chinese restaurants in cities around the world.

He was separated from his wife, Julie Parker McCahill.

Survivors include a daughter, Melissa McCahill Deerin of Chevy Chase; and three grandchildren

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Dick, I spoke to you on the phone a few months back as I am the son of John V. Gonglik. Sadly, John passed away on December 23, 1997. This was just four days before his birthday, he would have been 59. In 1966, John married Nancy Swochak, and they were married for 31 years. I am the only child. He resided in the City of Westfield Massachusetts where he worked for Digital Equipment Corporation for well over twenty years. I am proud to say that he raised a die hard black and gold sports fan and that is tough these days living in New England.

Friday, December 5, 2008

Canonsburg native Bobby Vinton poses for a photo next to a marker bearing his name and likeness outside the McDonald’s restaurant in Canonsburg.

It was the first time Vinton had returned to his hometown in more than 30 years. He and his wife, Dolly, were on their way to Pittsburgh International Airport, a day after Vinton performed in Morgantown, W.Va.

Restaurant owner Pam Galiano and Scott Kausky, restaurant manager, gave the Vintons a tour of the McDonald’s, which features memorabilia from Vinton and fellow Canonsburg natives Perry Como and the Four Coins. “He especially enjoyed the image of his bust and the engraved rock located in the drive-thru lane designated as Bobby Vinton Boulevard,” said Galiano. “He stayed for quite a while and signed autographs for the staff and customers.”

Monday, December 1, 2008

Here is a interesting photo I recently came across taken when my Father played for the Canonsburg Cubs. Area teams they played were the Homestead Greys, Pittsburgh Crawfords(teams that Hall of Famers - Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige played for), Washington Colored Giants(another all black team), St. Francis, Gladden, Venice, Muse and another Canonsburg team called the Athletics. The games were mostly payed on Sundays and drew hundreds of fans. The above photo is of one of those Sunday baseball games taken at Canonsburg's home field(Curry Field) located near "Philly Patch" now where all the restaurants are located. In the background of the photo you can also see the old incinerator.

Below is a box score, published in the Daily Notes (unknown date-1930's) from a game when the "Cubs" played the other Canonsburg team the "Athletics". If you click on the box score to enlarge you can make out many of the Canonsburg players names. Click on Josh Gibson above for his Bio.

Regards, Augie Fetcko

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Genealogy and HistoryFor those of you who love their Washington County Historycheck out www.chartiers.com

also available, thanks to Jim Herron are archived issues of the Jefferson Historical Society:www.chartiers.com/jeff/

Click on the above pictures to get an example of the county landmarks found on the web site.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

I finally figured out how to do this. I reduced the photos to fit a page and not take as long to e-mail. here a few with you & Judy. dick Garbowski has a blog that he ill post all the photos on if you want to see them. His address is: dickgarbo@qmail.com & dickgarbo.friends@blogger.com

Hope all is going well for you and the family. Ron's sister finally left her husband Brian. things have not gone well for the past few years, as he drinks too much - and other problems. I really feel for her. She left the house and rented an apartment. I do not know where. Jamie is still in college. I can't remember if she is a sophomore or a junior @ that college where there was that shooting, I think it is VA State. MY memory is leaving me!

Those photos you sent me before the reunion need to be reduced. Here is how it is done.

Bring up the photos: right click on the photo, click on open - click on Paint, go to the top of the screen and click on the Image Tab, a screen should come up with Horizontal and Vertical. You can click on any size you want. I first did 30 - 30 then tried 28 - 28 and 26 - 26 to see which one was better. This reduces the size of the photo making it easier to view. then you click on OK, then hit the X at the top corner. It asks you if you want to save the correction. If you do not like it, just hit NO if you do like it, hit save and it goes back to the album and you are ready to do the next print. Hope that works. Believe it or not, I took al the photos and am not in one. Can't find myself anywhere - except behind the camera. HA!

The night was too short, I did not get a chance to visit with many classmates. Even the night before, as it was not a good place to be able to sit and talk and visit. A bar is no place for OLD FOLKS to sit and visit. Maybe next time we should go to the Canonsburg Park and have an afternoon picnic so everyone can visit without a lot of back round commotion.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Thank youSaundra Weishner Reichel for sharing these group pictures from the Canonsburg High School Class of 1959 - five and ten year reunions. One of the pictures of the 10 year reunion, held at the Jefferson Room also includes guests and spouses.

Monday, September 15, 2008

To my knowledge, the only other time our Four Coins formally performed in Canonsburg, was back in the late 1950's. This indelible performance found them on-stage in the auditorium next to Canonsburg High School. As you may remember, the singing group was then known as "The Four Keys".

A recent email from Jeanne Mantalis indicated:: "The Four Coin's next gig is October 11, 2008 in Aliquippa, Pa for a Greek convention. We're not sure what the holidays may present. Thereafter, the Coins will be appearing at the Palace Theater in Greensburg, Pa March 6, 2009 with Bo Wagner, a duplicate of the CMHS show. Also, in April 2009 at several locations in the Pocono's."

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Robert J. "Roc" O'ConnellGraduate of Sayre High School in Bradford County and Penn State University...Considered the father of high school wrestling in Western Pennsylvania...Coached five years at Canonsburg High (1933-38) and compiled a 61-4-1 record after losing the first four matches(61-0)...Retired from coaching after 1937-38 season, but continued association with the WPIAL as chairman of the wrestling steering committee for 24 years...Principal at Canonsburg for more than 20 years...Member of the Pennsylvania Wrestling Coaches Association Hall of Fame

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Friday, September 5, 2008

I regret to inform that in talking today to Everet Leasure(Husband) residing in Parkersburg WV, that unfortunately Shirley Goodnight Leasure had passed away about four years ago from breast cancer.

Sorrowfully, I expressed our condolences to him and family.

The clock of life is wound but onceAnd no man has the powerTo tell just when the hands will stopAt late or early hour.Now is the only time you own.Live, love, toil with a will.Place no faith in time.For the clock may soon be still.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Recently came across some memorabilia and reminders of when I proudly served with the Navy - Hurricane Hunters - Jacksonville, Fl and Fleet Hurricane Center - Miami, FL.

As a member of the Hurricane Hunter squadron, my job was to gather and send weather related data from around and inside the eye of the storm we were tracking.

Penetrating the wall of the storm was a scary experience with the winds, turbulence and rapid change in altitude(as much as 1000' in a few secs).

Once inside the storm, the serene eeriness of the eye was amazing.

While inside the eye we would fly around taking weather observations at various altitudes from each quadrant of the storm eye . Depending on the size of the storm's eye, we could be inside for as much as an hour.

Completing our mission, we would penetrate back out, always exiting from the milder Northeast quadrant of the storm.

As we returned to base we would prepare and transmit the accumulated weather data and observations back to the Fleet Hurricane Center. Typically, each of our flights, round trip would last 12 hours. Dick Garboski

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Dick,Thanks so much for being in touch, as I have been so busy in the last several years with work in the public schools near Cleveland as a school psychologist at Lakeside High and as an adjunct psychology professor at Kent State University. I have also been teaching a parenting class for children's services semi annually. I spent the summer at Alvernia College and Penn State University, completing courses in biobehavioral health and marriage counseling, to acquire the credits to renew my license, since my daughter is the asst director of student affairs at PSU. Therefore, I have several email accounts and this one is my favorite, since it is my husband's old email account. The girls and I want to keep it, as he was an angel, always making us laugh...He was buried the day after Thanksgiving'06 with military honors in the National Cemetery of the Alleghenies, since he was in the army. I appreciate your condolences as well. My mother was 86 when she passed away last week...still in the canonsburg/houston area over the past 50+ years. Her family was from Bethel Park, so we followed her wishes to bury her in the Bethel Park Cemetery where the rest of her Hungarian family are interred.

But how are you and what are you doing in CA? How long have you been there? My mother's sister lives 40 miles south of San Francisco and every year my mother would travel there by train or plane with Isalys chipped ham and klondikes...My uncle, who was an engineer, worked originally for westinghouse near pleasant hills and later transferred to lockheed. They just loved Isalys. My 2 daughters and grandchildren and I were there a year ago in June. We took the kids to Disneyland and stayed at the Lemon Tree ( a good Australian spot).

I absolutely loved the CHS website...my mail has been transferred to my PSU daughter since my husband passed away and I have been traveling. I had not seen the notice, however, until after I talked to Jean Balsama Romano after my mother's funeral...Jean and I walked to school together everyday from W.College street where I lived and we stood on the corner of the High school at lunchtime daily, keeping in touch routinely ever since we left CHS.

I graduated with a BA in communication with a minor in education and BS in business with a minor in psychology at Carlow College and received my MS.Ed in education with certification in School Psychology at Duquesne U while my kids were in school. Of course, i married Joe after my career was ended in a major airline as an EAL Flight Attendant, since we were required to sign a contract that we would resign upon marriage...so I wore his engagement ring for 2 years on a chain around my neck. Talk about the epitome of discrimination! The average flight attendant worked only 18 months before they found Mr. Right and married. Later, we had 2 houses built in Peters Twp in the area of Crossgates during our 44 years of marriage, while I served as president of every level of PTA, Republican Women, Girl Scouts, etc, along with baking apple pies, until the kids went off to PSU and Joe retired after serving as a PT Police officer and lower court judge, while I began to work (he was a Pitt U guy, 8 years older than me and passed away at age 72), taking a position in the HS near the lake I love.

Our girls graduated from PSU and Kristen ( who was an insulin dependent diabetic since childhood)took a job with Conde Nast Traveler Magazine on Madison Ave in NYC as a promotion designer and my eldest never left 'happy valley' where she has been promoted to asst director of student affairs, directly under the dean at PSU. She has her masters in counseling psychology.

Now, how did I get to Australia...well, Kristen, my youngest, traveled there with her portfolio on vacation and took a promotion design position with Diabetes Australia since they love to hire diabetics, leaving both traveler and self magazine after 5 years in New York City.This is where she met her soulmate and has been married 7 years, after a fairy tale marriage with her wedding photos in Darling Harbor at the Sydney Opera House. She now has 2 children including my grandson, who is 5 and grandaughter, who was 2 in May. They are the absolute joy of my life.

So here I am winding up at the end of my life as the bionic woman with crippling arthritis and a defibrillator and pacemaker implant, after open heart surgery ( all inherited from my father) with the opportunity to travel worldwide, when all my husband thought we would be doing is growing old on the porch swing with the grandchildren visiting. HA!

My daughters want me to live six months a year near each, soooo....Kristen currently lives in a 4 bedroom $800,000 home in the suburbs of Sydney, which is well over my head....while my other daughter, has a townhouse about an hour from Philadelphia.

So much for short stories...Back to business....I would love to see some photos from Hawthorne Elementary, where Gary Briceland, Judy Greer and I attended 1st up to 8th grade. Also, photos and booklets from previous reunions including the 5th year, which I attended, but I can't remember the others I went to, since I know we were in Hawaii during one reunion. It is really great that there is a year to plan so hopefully, many can go. I remember that 5 year reunion well, as I was expecting my first baby any day at that time. She was born late on 9/12.I am amazed at how many of our classmates have relocated across the USA. My only difficulty living in Australia is attempting to drive on the other side of the road, and watching out for the kangaroo signs, which are just like the deer signs we have here.I loved our high school years, decorating with streamers for the proms and the dances we had, the clothes we wore, not to mention the greatest music ever in history, in my opinion.

Well, it looks like I have updated you with all I can think of at the moment...incidentally, I liked that one idea on the web....who was it that mentioned a cruise...wouldn't that be fun? Our best cruise was on Celebrity Lines to Jamaica, Grand Caymen Islands, Mexico, etc where we renewed our vows at 25 years ( I think, as one year we celebrated our anniversary cleaning out our attic, as I forgot what day it was...sept 22, the same day and year Aurella Dobbs was married, with Jean Balsama as her bridesmaid). But Joe and I were planning to take a cruise on the Mediterranian, however, we didn't make it...why not plan there??? However, I know the price of petrol is killing the cost of airfare...it cost us $4,000 each for Joe and I to travel twice a year to Australia since 2000. It is a loooong, costly trip, crossing the international date line which puts them a day ahead of us.

One last thing...I missed our favorite stop after school, (other than Isalys)..Jeffrey's drug store...does anyone have any photos of it? When I was in Canonsburg after my mother's funeral, I stopped at Citizen Bank and they were offering Tshirts with all the old Canonsburg memories on it, including Jeffrey's Drug Store. I think Tshirts with our old High School, Jeffreys, etc on it would be a great keepsake for a picnic at Town Park. Also, I can supply tiny australian kangaroos and koala bears for favors, if you like...I just need to know how many. You are also welcome to visit sydney, if you don't mind being wined and dined for 22 hours or 5 full length movies to get there..we are always welcoming americans, as they have the best surfing beaches on earth and driving around with the elevation changes, I feel it is alot like Pa., even though I like the flat roads of ohio, nevada, scottsdale (where my cousins live) and california best. I must say that this has been a terrific trip down memory lane and thanks so much for all you have prepared thus far...I loved all the photos of our town and events we shared!

The outpouring of St. Patrick's parishioners was impressive and we caught some of that on film, possibly your picture.

As a tribute two presentations were created.

A movie of the many well wishers, at the reception, with music by Andrea Boccelli and Sarah Brightman singing the beautiful Con Te Partiro or a Time To Say GoodBye.Click HERE to view the You Tube movie.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Thanks for sharing Carol! This Woolworth menu from the 1950's is great!I don't recall a soda fountain in either the McCrory's or the Woolworth 5 & 10 of Canonsburg. Do any of you?Matter of fact I'm not too sure now which was which?

Saturday, July 12, 2008

In regard to our 50th Class reunion, below is a list of classmates that I cannot find orverify a current address.To anyone that may have a clue as to their current contact information please contact me:

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Click on the PLAY Button above for a short video update on my Wine Cellar Project.Hope to soon provide an inside video tour but all are welcome now for an on-site tour with wine tasting availible in the cellar, which by the way, mother nature maintains at a constant 60 degrees.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The above slide show contains the Canonsburg pages of Stocking's 1901 Washington County Directory. Do not attach absolute significance to street numbers, most have changed. South Canonsburg was not in the borough, and some addresses have "S.C." to indicate South Canonsburg.

Jim Herron

Friday, June 20, 2008

Hi classmates. I'm afraid I have some sad news to tell you all. One of our classmates Patty Rodgers Dzurino was diagnosed with lung cancer last August. She went through chemo and was then told that it had spread to her brain. After undergoing radiation was then told it had spread to her spine. It has been a steady decline and a week ago Monday she was taken to Canonsburg Hospital. I saw her Friday of last week and Wednesday of this week but she was totally unresponsive by then. I am sorry to say she died this morning.

She will be at Salandra Funeral Home Sunday and buried Monday. Garbo perhaps you could post something on the canonsburg friends blog because I don't have everyone's e-mail addresses. She was one of the girls that would always go out to see Patty Powers Bails with the gang of us. In fact today we went out to celebrate Pattys birthday and this was the first time we were not all there. I will miss her greatly. She was a true friend.

HI....thought I'd let you guys know. Bill Hutchison is in the hospital. He has a blood clot in his left leg...they helicopter him up to Hamot Hospital in Erieon Saturday. His leg from knee cap down was cold.....they got blood moving into his calf but nothing seems to he happing below that......there is a possibility that he may have to have his leg from knee down amputated.

If you would like to email Hutch a get well greeting, please click on the link below to be forwarded to the Hospital's send a greeting web page.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Betty Jean DeLanie, 90, of Canonsburg, died Wednesday, May 14, 2008, in Canonsburg General Hospital.

She was born Sunday, May 12, 1918, in Washington, a daughter of Robert James and Jean R. Morrison Knox.

Surviving are two sons, Robert G. DeLanie of Canonsburg and David L. DeLanie of Omaha, Neb.; a daughter, Judith Ann Sunday of Canonsburg; six grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Deceased is her husband, Kenneth C. DeLanie, who died in February 1997.

Friends will be received from 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday in Sollon Funeral Home Ltd., 30 East College Street, Canonsburg, J. David Sollon, supervisor, where services will be held at 10 a.m. Monday, May 19, with the Rev. Dennis Johnson, pastor of Meadow Lands United Methodist Church, officiating. Interment will be private in Washington Cemetery. Visit www.sollon.com to view and leave online condolences.

Monday, May 12, 2008

I talked with Camille's son,(Camille is Barbara's Sister) and verified that Barbara Wines had indeed pass away. Very little background information is known at this time but it appears she passed away a few years ago.

Sorry for the bad news.

Donna

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Thursday, May 1, 2008

From: August FetckoSent: Monday, April 21, 2008 5:30:30 PMSubject: Lost in the 50's - letter from Augie

Every time I hear the attached song: Lost in the Fifties, I get nostalgic about our formative years in the 1950's and the old hometown. I recently read an article in Psychology Today that said that recent studies suggest that an occasional detour down Memory Lane can give your spirits a significant lift and that thinking good memories for just 20 minutes a day can make a person happier.

My modest proposals for our monumental 50th are as follows:

1. That we hold the party at Rolling Hillssince Donna and John recommended it as the best facility and we have a history there.

2. That the reunion date be towards the end of Sept. or beginning of Oct-2009

3. That a $50 for 50 years donation would be an appropriate amount for those who want to contribute.